Author, hero speaks at Y

Ruth Gruber, 95, has lived anything but an ordinary life. Throughout her lifetime, Gruber rescued refugees during the Holocaust, worked as an international war correspondent for a newspaper and through her writing and photographs documented many important historical events.
On Tuesday, May 1, at 1:30 p.m. at the Central Queens YM & YWHA in Forest Hills, Gruber will share her own story of life as a witness to, and participant, in many of the most significant events in 20th century Jewish history.
Gruber is best known for rescuing thousands of Jewish refugees during World War II, has just published a new memoir sharing her incredible life stories and historic photographs taken as a war correspondent.
When she was 24, Gruber became an international correspondent for the New York Herald Tribune and traveled across the Soviet Arctic, witnessing firsthand the building of cities in the Siberian gulag by the pioneers and prisoners.
In 1944, in the defining moment of her life, she was given a secret mission to bring thousands of Jewish refugees from Europe to the U.S., the only Jews given refuge in this country during the war at a time when thousands were sent to the gas chambers ever day.
Wherever she went, Gruber documented what she saw - and her remarkable photographs preserve the immediacy of those moments. In her new book, “Witness,” Gruber writes that her life and work have been guided by her belief, “Do everything, everything, from the heart.”
Gruber’s talk is one in the Spring Meet the Author Series sponsored by the Rabbi Simon Hevesi Library of the Central Queens YM & YWHA, at 67-09 108th Street in Forest Hills.
All events are open to the public, with a $4 donation requested. For more information, call 718-268-5011, ext. 151, or email pkurtz@cqyjcc.org.